Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. It's four p. M. Let's get started. Welcome, everyone, and welcome to the Redlands Planning Commission meeting for 10/14/2025. We have a quorum present. Are there any public comments on matters not on today's agenda? Seeing none, we will move on to item number two, presentations. We have none. Item number three is a consent calendar. Meeting minutes of 09/23/2025 extension of time for CRA number 949 extension of time for CRA number 963 and CUP 1184 and 1185 are there any questions about the consent calendar?

Chair I will abstain on the meeting minutes of the twenty third since I was not present.

Okay. Any other further comments on the consent calendar?

I'll abstain on on B on the consent calendar

okay do I have a motion to approve the consent go ahead Brian

think you're gonna need separate votes on each item since we have different people abstaining on different items

okay can I get a motion to approve the meeting minutes of 09/23/2025?

Move. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion and one abstention any abstain yes okay can I do the I'm gonna do the CRAs together can I get a motion to approve extension of time for CRA number 949 and extension of time for CRA nine sixty three CUP eleven eighty four and eleven eighty five?

So moved. Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Any abstentions?

Yes.

Motion carries. Moving on to item number four old business we have none moving on to item number five new business item number 5 a 5 a is a request for a tentative parcel map number 21019 to subdivide residential parcel into two lots for residential development located at 1560 Church Street. Has any commissioner had any expert communications with the applicant on this item? Seeing none. Staff presentation by Jasmine Serrato. Miss Serrato?

Thank you chair and members of the commission. Let me just turn over to the slides. Alright. So this is tentative parcel map number 21019. The applicant proposes to subdivide an existing 36,097 square foot parcel into two for residential purposes located at the Southeast Corner Of Church Street and East San Marino Avenue.

Parcel 1 is currently developed with an existing single family residence and Parcel 2 is expected to be developed in the future with a single family residence and possibly an accessory dwelling unit. However, any new structures would be subsequently reviewed via the plan check process under separate permits. The subject property is located in the low density residential land use designation which is intended to be developed at a density of up to six dwelling units per acre to support the development of single family residences. Similarly, it's also located within the single family R1 district, which is intended to provide environment for low density single family homes with no mixing of incompatible uses. Overall, the subdivision demonstrates compliance with the underlying zoning development standards and will be able to accommodate for future development as well.

The tentative parcel map would subdivide an existing lot into two for residential purposes. Parcel one will measure approximately 18,041 gross square feet and Parcel two will measure approximately 18,056 square feet. The proposed project will result in an annual revenue totaling $15.37 and annual cost of $6.72 for an anticipated positive balance of $8.65 for a positive cost benefit ratio of 2.29. The proposed project meets the listed criteria here to qualify for exemption from environmental review pursuant to section 15 through 15 for minor land divisions. There are a total of seven findings for tentative parcel map.

These findings are generally related to site suitability regarding the location and surroundings and the overall public effect of the subdivision. The proposal meets the findings and justification for each is contained within resolution. Staff recommends the Planning Commission adopt resolution number 1720 6 to approve tentative parcel map number 21,019 and the associated socioeconomic cost benefit study based on analysis and findings in the staff report and subject to the conditions of approval. Thank you.

Thank you. Does any commissioner have any questions for staff at this time? Seeing none and no applicant present.

The applicant is present too.

Just for questions or do you have a presentation?

No, we don't have any presentation.

Thank you. Do any commissioners have any questions for the applicants at this time? Seeing none, okay would you please oh the motion is on the screen or would someone like to?

I move that on. I move that the Planning Planning Commission Commission

Sorry, Chair, maybe we missed it. This was open as a public hearing.

Not on here, sorry.

Oh, sorry.

Yes. So we will do we need to go back and redo this whole thing?

Well, the socioeconomic study does require a public hearing. We've also the parcel map as well. So if there's any public comments from the audience or Zoom, we should take those at this time.

Absolutely. But do we need we don't need to open it and then go back and re present, correct?

I think you can announce the public hearing is open.

Okay. So my apologies, this is a public hearing. Are there any speakers here today on this matter? Seeing none, do we have any on Zoom? No? Okay. Seeing none, did we receive any written comments?

No written comments.

Okay. Now I will turn it back over to the commission for deliberations and findings. Commissioner? I know. Stanson, go ahead.

Brian, turn

me off.

I don't have any problems with it.

Okay. Would you like to make a motion?

I was just going

to say quick while we're

still in deliberation. I frequent this lot on my way home a lot and I believe it had undergone extensive fire damage in the past. And so I'm really glad to see that not only are we getting that home restored, but we're also adding additional homes. So that's quite a victory for that corner. So good job. And I'll let mister commissioner Sanson take it away.

Okay. Let's try this again. I move that the planning commission adopt resolution number seventeen twenty six, approve the social economic cost benefit study prepared for the project and approve tentative parcel map number 21019 based on the findings in the staff report subject to the attached conditions of approval.

Second. Second.

All in favor?

Aye. Okay.

It is I am so backwards today and I really apologize guys. It has been moved by commissioner Stanson and seconded by Commissioner Gonzalez to approve tentative parcel map number 21019 and the motion carries. Thank you. Congratulations. Moving on to number item five b.

Five b is a recommendation to the City Council for tentative track MAC number 20792 commission review and approval number 972 and conditional use permit number 12O1 to construct eight condominium dwelling units on two vacant parcels located at 516 Cajon Street, and I will now open the public hearing for this item. Has any commissioner had any ex parte communications on this matter? Seeing none. Staff presentations by Nelson Escada. Welcome.

Thank you, chair and members of the commission. The proposal is for eight condominium units to be constructed on a half acre site. The project site is on the West Side Of Cajon in between West Home Place and West Cypress Avenue. The project is on two parcels that total approximately half acre. It sits between small multi tenant commercial building to the north and a single family dwelling to the South.

In front and rear of the project are a mix of majority historic single family homes with some multifamily dwellings. As an added point of clarification, both the southern parcel and the parcel to the south of the proposed site are addressed as 532 Cahone Street. The scope of this project is for the vacant parcel and does not include the existing home. Now the subject property is within the office general plan designation. The office designation allows for residential uses consistent with the zoning designation of these sites.

And the site is also within the Administrative Professional Zoning District. The zoning designation allows for residential uses with densities consistent with the multifamily residential R3 district. Project is within the historic district number Historic And Scenic District, which is between Cypress and Fern as shown here. Now here's some background to the project, because the site is within the historic district, the proposal requires a certificate of appropriateness, which is approved by Historic Antenna Preservation Commission. The HSBC has reviewed the project at meetings on 12/05/2024 and then again on 06/05/2025.

Both of these were design review and after the first meeting, the proposal was significantly revised based on comments from the commission. The current design is a result of meetings with HSBC. And at the second meeting, the HSBC felt that the project was an overall conformance with the city's architectural historic design guidelines. And then just a timeline as well. So this is a timeline of the project path of fuel that follows four primary phases.

A design review phase, which I just mentioned, which establishes architectural and site design that would be in substantial conformity with our architectural design guidelines. Planning Commission phase, which establishes a recommendation for the entitlement items that would later be approved at a City Council meeting. And finally, as a condition of approval, project needs to get approval a conditional approvals that the project needs to be approved with the certificate of appropriateness. Now let's start with the site. The project site is approximately 136 feet wide by 160 feet deep.

Primary access will be from the north from the North South running alleyway that runs between Homeplace and Cypress Avenue. Each unit has a designated garage accessed from the center driveway. There is no vehicular access from Cajon. Cajon is reserved for pedestrian access only. This is a Ground Floor plan. This is a there is a garage with access to a kitchen, powder room, living room, and dining room. There's also front entrance at the opposite side of the garage. 2nd Story has three bedrooms and private outdoor space. Lastly two bathrooms. Off street parking, each condominium unit is required to have two covered parking spaces.

The proposal provides the following 16 total residential units to per garage unit and four additional guest spaces uncovered with a total of 20 spaces. Open spaces provided in private and common areas. The project includes twelve ninety two square feet of common open space with amenities such as children's play areas, tables, barbecue pits. Private spaces total sixteen eighty eight square feet. This includes patios, balconies and other spaces between the units.

Project provides approximately 4,000 square feet of landscaped area with a number of different trees, shrubs, perennials and ground cover. This includes Brisbane box and a number of these different items for the landscaping. This is the primary entrance or front of the buildings and there will be two options for these. The styles will this styles will be oriented towards Cajon Street and the alleyway. So this is what will be visible from the public right of way.

The second layout is what is in between the units or the interior walkways, these are facing the interior walkways, not entirely visible from the primary right of way. Lastly, here are some renderings. The following renderings have been provided as well. So this is from the side. Associate cost economic benefit study was prepared and found the following, may participate in annual revenue of $11,445 anticipated annual cost of about $5,909 anticipated positive balance of 5,537 with a positive cost benefit ratio of 1.94.

This is exempt from CEQA per section 15,332 for infill development projects. Now the findings for the conditional use permit are the following. Findings for the tentative track map are the following. Essentially saying that the site is physically suitable for the type of density and the development. Now lastly, staff recommends the Planning Commission adopt Resolution No.

Seventeen twenty five, Attachment H and recommends that the City Council approve the project entitlements and adopt the associated socioeconomic cost benefit study based on the analysis and findings in the staff report and subject to the attached conditions of approval. And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you. Does any commissioner have any questions for staff at this time? Commissioner Elliott.

Thank you for the presentation. Because we'll be basing our decision on the findings tonight, could you go back to the findings slides and walk us through what each of those findings are and maybe describe from staff's perspective how the project meets each of those?

For the most part with conditional use permit, it is allowed within the it's allowed within it's a permitted use. Then it complies with a lot of the regulations that are in the zoning district. So development standards, it met all the development standards for R3 specifically. And then not to mention to it in terms of density and general plan zoning, it all it met those standards as well. So the site for the intended this is for the commission review and approval.

The site for the intended use is adequate in size and shape to accommodate the use and all of the required yard setbacks, walls, fences, landscaping and other features will adjust to the use of those existing or permitted future uses of the land in the neighborhood.

And so we're finding number two that it relates to streets and highways and because access is being taken from the alley. Is the alley found to be adequate in construction and width and turning movements to support the density at this site?

It has been found and there will be improvements to the alleyway as well. Yeah.

Well, Mr. Stanson.

It seems like this project is large for It's the original historic neighborhood, basically, isn't it? So it just seems a little bit out of place for that location. That's that's my only comment to staff. It's just doesn't seem like it's quite appropriate for where it is based on the findings.

Vice Chair Inslee?

Yeah. In response to Commissioner Stanson, I was thinking the same upon first glance, but then reviewing site plan, the basic measurements that they're providing, it seems that they're well within the standard building height that's in that area of the historical homes. I think it was at peak 26 feet. And I think there's probably a couple houses right next to it that'll be even taller. So, know, and knowing that the historic preservation that they had looked at that and it looks like they had gone back for revisions at least once, that is helpful. So yeah, I don't feel the scale is too significant for this area.

Yes, the buildings themselves are approximately the size of many of the single family homes in the area. They're both in height, width, many of these are two storey buildings and approximately each one these buildings is about 30 by 30 feet in dimension and that's pretty similar to what we see with a lot of the neighboring buildings as well. So just a scope, especially on Cajon, Cajon has larger streets.

Thank you. Commissioner Wills. Yes.

Thank you. I actually think, yeah, density wise, there are apartment buildings in that area. So that part didn't jump out to me as much. But did the historic preservation committee, did they or commission, did they have any comments on I guess what's nice about the historic, building is that they do front all the way across the lot in that portion. Did they comment on that landscaping strip that shields the alleyway? Did they indicate that that was sufficient screening to blend in with everything else on

the street?

Are you talking between the alleyway and the property?

Yes. Yeah. Because they've got the concrete driveway that comes all the way through almost to Cajon. I just wanted to make sure that the commission was okay with that screening method.

Yes. They didn't have any issues with that specific portion. Didn't mention anything in regards that. Foote?

Chair, if I could just piggyback on that a little bit. So as was mentioned, this design review went to the historic commission two times. The first time, the commission asked for some rather significant changes. Initially, the design was a large boxy building that had more of the appearance of an apartment building. And so the project architect took that commission's comments to heart and went back and over a period of a couple of months significantly redesigned this project.

It now is four detached house formed buildings, about two stories high. So the height has been reduced a little bit actually from the initial submittal. And as is shown on the elevations, the design is more of craftsman theme, which is consistent with the historic district. And then of course, the house formed buildings are consistent with the surrounding structures. There's a number of two and two point five story older homes up and down the block, particularly that frontage along Cajon as well as the 4th Street to the rear of this property. There's a number of two story homes also in that neighborhood.

It's almost like this is a compromise between having that density, but it still maintains that single family appearance historically a little bit. Is that kind of the compromise maybe there?

That's exactly correct, yes.

Alright, thank you so much

for that.

Commissioner, follow-up questions, Were there any specific conditions that the historic commission asked to be included?

They had comments and recommendations for improvements such as like natural materials, certain colors, just to match with the craftsman style and but for the most part, the first meeting was where we got a lot of the design review and then the second was just comments that we stayed after but no conditions immediately.

I think when we get to deliberations, we might want to bring that back to condition the use of those materials, so it's not something that's swapped out in post entitlement plan potentially. And then we recently did the code update and I think we removed the CUP requirement for certain multifamily developments, but this remains a CUP because it's a condominium project, is that correct?

Yes, thank you for clarifying. That is correct. The code does require a conditional use permit for condominium maps and the code also requires the condominium map to be forwarded to the planning committee or the city council ultimately for approval. Just as a side note, we can maybe revisit that in our next code amendment we look at.

And then are there any particular findings for the condo map that are different than what we're used to seeing?

No. The four findings typical for a conditional use permit are applicable to this project. As was explained a little bit earlier, the three findings for commission approval pertain mainly to site construction and site improvements, which as was discussed, meets all the zoning standards and requirements for site improvements. So those three findings can be made. And then the four findings pertaining to the use as a condominium map that checks all the boxes for those findings as a purely residential use in a mostly residential neighborhood.

Okay, thank you. Commissioner Gonzalez.

Yes, is there sufficient room for fire trucks to go on that lane or the driveway?

Yeah. So there's they're they have host pool length and I think there are other requirements and conditions that fire has put just mechanically. So fire has had a good chance to look at this project, make sure that everything's good to go.

And then my other question, the waste pickup or trash pickup, is that through the alleyway?

Through the alleyway as well.

Thank you. I

had a couple of questions. You mentioned there's going to be some improvements in the alleyway. Could you walk us through those?

Yeah, so there are improvements that are conditioned and I'll go back to the site plan here. Essentially from I don't know if we'll have a chance to see it in the site plan here. But off of the alleyway from up to Homeplace, essentially from the southern portion of where the alleyway meets the site to Homeplace, the paving has to be redone, the exit has to be improved, there is a tree there that might have to be adjusted and relocated. But yeah, a lot of these are just improvements because that alleyway will be used more frequently. Yeah.

Mr. Foote? That would be engineering condition number 10, specifically discussed as requirements for the alley, including repair, replacing any altered, broken or substandard existing improvements, full depth construction, reconstruction consistent with city standards and new centerline ribbon gutter. So these are all standard requirements.

Okay. And then my second question was, I didn't see anything on inclusionary housing. Is because of the unit size, are they exempt? Okay. Perfect.

It's not because of the unit size.

The number units

is what I meant. Yeah. My words are clearly escaping me today, but that's exactly what I meant. I would just like to tell that you're yep. You don't need to come up here unless anyone has questions for you, but I really appreciate your renderings. Sometimes we get real life renderings like that. Sometimes we don't. I wish it was a requirement. It really gives a really great visual for the project, so thank you for that. Any other questions for staff at this time? Okay. Does the app do have you a presentation, or are you just here for questions? Perfect. Does any commissioner have any questions for the applicant at this time? All right. Seeing done, we will move on to public comments. We will start with speaker slips. So first up is Judith Hunt. Welcome. You can join us, and please introduce yourself.

Hello, commissioners. I am Judith Hunt. I am currently the president of the Redlands Area Historical Society, and this is an organization that has been in Redlands for over fifty years. We, of course, are very interested in the historic built in Redlands, and that's what I'm most interested in. We all know that this is what makes Redlands special, is this historic element and our historic neighborhoods.

Interestingly enough, these two lots have been rezoned. This is in our one neighborhood. All the other homes on Cajon are single family homes on one lot. You may not be aware of it, but in 2007, there's a lot that's on the East Side Of Cajon, a little bit closer to Fern so it's north of these two lots. It

was

a vacant lot and a home was built there to blend in with the neighborhood. 2007, a lot of people in town don't even know that that's a new home that was built there. So the home actually that's just north of this these two lots is 532, and it's a turn of the century, early nineteen hundred's. The reason that it's so tall actually is because it has an attic on it, which all the homes at that time did have attics. The thing that concerns me is that I was at the Historic and Scenic Preservation Commission meeting, the second one that's been spoken about, where they presented this new plan.

I'm a past Historic and Scenic and preservation commissioner in the early 2000s, I was on the commission. The density was a huge problem. It was a very contentious meeting. There were lots of questions. Lots of neighbors appeared because that was a 06:00 meeting, and I'm sure you're aware of the fact that a 04:00 meeting is hard for a lot of people to get to because of work. Lots of questions about density, about traffic, about lights. There was a woman who lives in the historic district on 4th Street that butts right up to this property. She's she's just west of this these two lots. And she was asking about lights. Are they going to put lights out in their parking area?

And the question was never resolved. Another thing that you should be aware of even though they've changed this to look more like a craftsman style that the materials those pillars are made out of plastic. They're going to yellow and change in the sun. It's not going to be representative of our historic features and what we pride in Redlands. I know as far back as 1959, Redlands allowed, the city allowed obviously it had to be the Planning Commission and the City Council. There were lots of people involved in that. A mid century building was built. A Victorian home was torn down, the Heim Building.

Sorry but if you could wrap up that would be.

Yeah and there are a couple of them just to the north of this there's a business going on. And let's don't make that mistake again. Know, let's that really changed that neighborhood and that wasn't a good change. It's it's not something that we're proud of in Redlands. So please don't find for this. I think it's too much in that tiny area and the parking is going to be a problem, the traffic is going to be a problem. Thank you very much.

You, appreciate it. Next up is Mark Thompson. Welcome.

Hi there. Mark Thompson. Not a fan of this. My wife was the one that was here about the lighting. There was a lot unanswered questions at the historical society meeting, I'll just go over a few of them.

One, it was asked if this was going to actually be a condo with a homeowners association and that was never clarified. So if it hasn't been clarified, typically that means there's not going to be. Who are we going to address issues to? If the dumpster is left out in the alley, alley, I literally park my car right where the entrance to this facility is right now. I cannot understand the second point, I cannot understand why we are not having the entrance on Cajon.

There are five driveways in that city block. It shouldn't be, the traffic shouldn't be entering into a small alley. That alley is quite busy. There's no through traffic, there's no way cars can pass each other in that alley at this time. The massing, we talk about, oh, the look is great.

I do really appreciate actually the changes in the look, but the massing on that one small piece of property is not does not fit the neighborhood at all. If you when you look at the pictures, you can see one there's one house or maybe one in a small ADU on most of the other properties. This is for 2,800 square foot buildings or whatever it is. So the massing is enormous. Lighting, you know, is it all going to be downward facing lighting?

Is it going to be 15 or 20 foot tall light poles in and around the facility? Because that is going to really do a lot of damage as far as the night sky goes. And then there's the setbacks. Again, if you look at all of those other homes in those neighborhoods, the setbacks are significant. Here the setbacks, the setback is like eight or nine feet.

So it's like eight or nine feet and then there's a 26 foot wall that is surrounding you. So I would really urge the planning commission to look at those issues. My biggest one again is that traffic that's gonna happen in that alleyway. It is just not big enough. I use it every day.

I know it's not big enough. And when you turn on to home, when you turn right onto home, because of all the businesses and things that are there during the day, it's single lane. I don't think a fire truck could get through there right now. And I'd be I'd love to see the trash truck and the fire truck try and do turn there without it being a three point turn. So thank you for your time, I appreciate it.

Thank you. That concludes our speaker slips. Is there anyone else in the audience here to speak on this matter? Welcome.

Good afternoon, I'm Adrianna Gonzalez. This is my husband, Michael. We wanna just kinda focus and reiterate kind of what some of our neighbors have mentioned. We live there in that same area, and some of our concerns, we went to both of the previous meetings and also felt like there were a lot of unanswered questions, specifically about the materials. They have made some some changes, but the materials are still kind of an unanswered question for us.

It's really not so much about the heights and the dimensions. It's really the density. Most of the houses on in that area are two story with an attic, but then they have like a one or a two car garage. And even with those two car garages like we like we have, it is very tight and takes some coordination to get in and out of that of that area. But our our first concern is just the historic preservation of the area.

This notice confirms that the parcel lies in Historic District 3, so adding more modern condominiums. Condominiums, in our opinion, would alter the historic streetscape and the architectural integrity of the area. I think there's a risk to losing the historic character and small town scale by replacing what was originally two single family homes with the notice says eight, but I thought the presentation said 16 tonight, so I was unclear as to how many units are actually going to be there. Okay. I thought I saw 16 somewhere on the presentation. Parking. Because it's two

covered parking spots for each unit.

Two park. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. Moving to more of the density and just the parking and traffic impact with eight condo units each with two stories for sure this is going to generate so much more vehicles in the area more than we even see with the typical professional use it's kind of at the end of the alley on the one end of of our street. The traffic congestion is another concern. The businesses that are there park on this side street on Home Place. They park on Ticahone. It is really difficult to get out of the alley and turn. There's a blind spot there. There's not a tree in the alley as as was mentioned.

It's kind of on the sidewalk beyond it. But even with just trying to get one car out of the alley, it is impossible. With the blind spots that exist now, you can never get two down at the same time. So we're very concerned just about how dangerous that could potentially be adding 16 more cars to this very narrow alley as it is. In terms of the I'm not sure where to bring this up, but the we got the notice dated the third, and then this meeting was for the fourteenth.

So it was difficult to kind of coordinate getting off of work and getting here on time and being able to review this very important meeting notes so that this very important and high stakes decision could be made. We also have questions about the duplicate address. This was brought up at the last meeting, the 532 and what's gonna happen with the the two parcels having the same address, the 532. That was another question that's still outstanding.

Is there anything else you want

to add? Yeah. Can we turn to the map please just real quick?

So hold on. Let's do it this way. Can you have a seat? Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. You can be the next speaker.

Michael Lipp? Yes. That so Oh, sorry. Yeah. So Let's do the one where Oh, yeah.

So the alleyway and then cone. So the south side, right, the the house that's there, if we're looking at the South 2 buildings, the way it looks like it's been made is that it's kind of, you know, that we have the alley that kind of pushes all four buildings towards the exterior of the of the actual map. So these buildings are gonna be up against right up against the the South Home there. So it's gonna not have we won't have much privacy at all. So I I think you know in terms of the overall like density when we're talking about what looks historically appropriate, the alleyway where you're driving through the center doesn't even really look like it would have anything it wouldn't look like anything else in in the neighborhood.

So that's just also another big concern is that, you know, privacy in terms of how close the buildings are to the edge and then also just the way it looks overall with with the driveway through the center. That was all I had to add.

Thank you so much. Any other speakers in the audience here on this matter? Okay, seeing none, do we have any comments on Zoom? I'm gonna, I'm no oh got it okay we'll give you just a second make sure we can answer any questions that might be Okay. Well, I don't wanna not address anyone.

Does alt tab work on your thing? Does that switch to zoom? Okay. Thank you for your patience everyone we want to make sure that everyone's addressed okay seeing none does the app you already said you don't have a presentation you're just here for okay, so before we close Mr. Foote.

Excuse me, Chair, I believe we received earlier today

one Oh written yes, I'm sorry, could you summarize our written comment?

Sure, I believe the comment was from Ms. Beal. She had sent an email to the city clerk, which was forwarded to the commission earlier today and she's opposed to the project.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you. All right. Before we close the public hearing, are there any questions for the applicant or for staff at this time? Commissioner Stanson. So regarding the lighting,

has that been worked out? Has there's been photometrics has been worked out so there's they're not shining on the adjacent properties?

We don't have photometrics at this time. Can make that a condition. That's the type of thing that we can address through conditions of approval. We can of course, a condition typical shielding depending on the light type. I don't recall seeing light poles on your plans. Do you want to address the light pole question?

So the lights, we are in development in a couple different cities. And one of the current cities that we've been in is also residential, and that one's gonna be a much larger commercial project. And that was one of the conditions of approval. It was night lighting that is gonna be very minimal. Again, we're bringing in residential, not bringing in commercial, not bringing in like a twenty four hour gas station. The people that are living there are gonna want it to be dark too.

Well, you don't want it to be too dark because of that Not too dark. That promotes

It's gonna be in line with the rest of the residential. And then I don't know if you want me to address everything else now, but I'll wait.

If you don't have a formal presentation, let's just kind of go through.

My question for you though is regarding, is there going be a homeowners association so that the residents can do does have somebody to go to if there's issues?

Yes. So the whole reason we're doing a tentative track map is for the condos. That one cost tens of thousands of dollars. It's not something we did on a whim. We like pursue home ownership, that's something we've always done because people take care of their property a lot better than when it's just an apartment and they're just renting. So we want to enforce a community and we want people to come in, have an HOA, have responsibility for the property that they can call their own.

So you are going to have an association? Yeah. Okay.

Can I pause you for just a second and go back and kind of finish up your lighting comment? Would you be amenable approval to work with staff on a lighting plan that doesn't interfere with the nearby residents?

Absolutely.

Okay. Perfect. My last comment for you is I do have some concern on materials. If you are going to be using plastic as part of your reproduction of the can't think of the names

of the homes.

The columns.

The columns.

That was part of the original back all the way before we got the comments on it. So that hasn't changed.

That has changed. So you are gonna make them out of wood or something more It's going to be more appropriate for material for the neighborhood. Yeah. Can that be conditioned in?

Yeah. We understand we're in a historical department. This is going to be a lot more adherent to the historical design standards.

So I'm going to make a note. Mr. Foote, tell me if I have this right. Can we make a condition to ensure that the materials are approved by? Help me out with how we The condition

materials should be natural materials such as water stone consistent with the craftsman style. I'm sure that there's going to come up later with the certificate of appropriateness with the historic commission. My understanding is I mentioned it previously at a prior meeting, that type of thing should be a condition of approval.

So we can add that in?

Yes, if the applicant's agreeable.

Agreed? Perfect.

We're always open. I think we've changed a

lot. As much as we can knock out here, it's going to make your process easier, right?

Absolutely.

Think it's a nice project. And I understand where the residents come from because it is a change for the neighborhood. And so I would like to see it kept as close Absolutely. To the neighborhood as possible. So there's harmony.

Yeah, we faved off over 4,000 square feet coming back from the original project review. We came back, we subdivided it into a whole bunch of different buildings and then the maximum density that we were allowed was 14 units. So we brought that down to eight. So we're trying to keep it pretty consistent.

Okay. Thank you. Vice chair Inslee. Oh, no. Sorry. Commissioner Wells.

Yes. Thank you. Question on the well, I see. So the property of the north is developed commercially right now, but the property of the South is still residential. And I just was curious about the sidewalks that we have between the buildings and the property line. And I'm just a little concerned about funneling pedestrian traffic right up against that residential property. I'm curious if you could kind of walk us through what you anticipate the usage on that sidewalk to be. Like, is it just for ADA as a backups, they're not going in front of the garages or why funnel the traffic closer to the home rather than through the alley?

So we've been struggling with that because we originally, when we had the original concept of the project, we wanted to have access from Cajon because we understood all of the comments and the concerns about using the alley, so that's where all the alleyway improvements came in. And then in working with the city, they didn't really want anything coming in from Cajon. So mostly, we're just trying to make it as accessible to the public from the outside without having any vehicular traffic coming from Cajon. So, just trying

to Yeah.

Guess I just my thought just, you know, it might be a little odd at certain times of day if there's foot traffic right next to your side yard of a house. It just seems a little odd. But I don't have a suggestion on how to to fix it at this time. But I thought I'd at least inquire about that. I I don't know if that adjacent property owner is here or not or if that has been an issue they raised.

Vice Chair Inslee.

Yeah. I just wanted to address there was a comment made about setbacks. So proximity to the neighbor presumably to the South and then looking at the site plan, looks like a seven foot six inch from building envelope to the property line. Is that still

I think it's eight. 7.5.

7.5. For two storey structure, the code requires 7.5 feet, which is shown on the plans.

Right. So and that's, I'm assuming gone through a lot of thought on this. So I just wanted to it's less of a question, more of a comment just to make sure that that was considered. It is part of the code requirement or allotment. And in looking at other properties to the south, while this one is very used to seeing a building or no building to the north of them will now have something might feel like it's encroaching several other properties to the south also have very similar identical setbacks. So it's still in alignment with that.

And we've been working with Nielsen. He's been amazing. We've been working with him for almost a year and a half now. So we've ironed out a lot.

Absolutely. There was also a comment about HOA and the confusion about that, but I wanted to point out that it's CUP item number 30, if I'm not mistaken, there's a whole CCNR section regarding HOAs. That's correct.

It's a standard requirement conditions twenty nine and thirty address the HOA requirement. Excellent.

That's all the comments I had right now.

One last one. Regarding the alleyway, Brian, is there anything that can be done, make it one way or something that would help with the traffic if we're adding 16 more cars to it that would help the neighborhood?

Well, my understanding that alley design meets the city's standard requirement for alleys. Really, these are the last the last parcel on that block, on both sides of the block to develop. There's numerous houses up and down the alley with garage access that have been developed that way for decades now. So the incremental increase of eight units is not really you expected to be don't see

a problem with traffic?

No.

Yes, Commissioner Elliott. I think I'm going to probably echo some questions or concerns or sentiments from the other commissioners. I agree with the condition for a lighting plan to make sure that lighting is installed in a way that's respectful to the neighboring properties. It still meets the needs of the new residents. I also agree with the condition for historically appropriate materials I'm sure the historic preservation commission will handle that but I think we want to also have that within our own conditions.

I'm glad we have some clarity on the HOA and that there's a condition of approval for that already in our document. I do have some concern with the alley it's 20 feet wide and I do appreciate that that can be difficult to navigate if there's two cars each going opposite directions in our alley and that's assuming that the alley is in pristine clean maintained condition and you're able to drive extremely close to whatever fence or wall perimeter that is. So to me that presents concern and as we have a 30 foot wide driveway on the site you know but then we're we have a 20 foot wide alley and to me it seems like a little incongruent. If 20 feet is enough then can 30 feet be enough for the interior of the site and then allow those buildings to come in toward the center a little bit more to bring them back from the side yard setbacks. The comments about density are not as much of a concern for me.

We've seen several of these large historic homes notably on Olive And Fern and others that have converted over time into multifamily homes and part of the reason the city allowed that was to make these homes viable so that they can continue to exist because they're big, they're old, they're expensive to maintain and sometimes the only way to make that work is to have it not just be a single family home. And these homes are large. I don't feel like these units stand out to me in terms of scale. Again, I find that the density is appropriate for the historic use of the neighborhood where we do have many historic homes used as apartments today. So I think perhaps we could hear from staff more on the alley.

I'm just really struggling with the alley of and is there any trash service that happens in the alley? It seems like it's a challenging situation that's already existing and this project isn't anything to remedy that situation.

If staff could help us with that I'm going to add to the question a little bit so hopefully you can answer them both at one time have we looked at a second entrance is it not possible would that maybe alleviate some of that so if we could address the alley and why there's not an interest on Cajon or if it's possible to have one, that would be great.

Can I ask Mr? Young to address the alley question and then we'll address the front driveway in a second. Perfect.

Thank you.

The standard width for alleys throughout the city is 20 feet wide. Developers typically will widen the section along their frontage and put with this alley, the standard is a the median there's reference to a median gutter down the middle of it that will assist with drainage. The reason for the 30 foot width coming on to the site is that gives the turn radius just as at your driveway at your house. The driveway flares out. This will allow vehicles to come in and not have to make a pinpoint right hand turn.

They'll be able to angle in and angle out. The a project like this, if it's eight units, that's a total estimate of for these 6.3 times eight, we'll say fifth just to make the math easy, 50 vehicles a day going up and down the alley. During the peak hour, that'd be 15% of 50, which is seven vehicles an hour during the peak hour traffic. Those numbers come from the issue traffic engineers. So that'd be over the course of the peak hour, the vehicle every seven or eight minutes extra to what's going out there.

We do understand the concerns of the neighbors just as they come and go the this development, there would be people coming, going in and out of the alley.

Is this project being conditioned to widen their frontage along the alley?

If it's not already at the full width of 10 feet on their side, they would be required to widen it. And if it's broken up, they're required to replace it. And I believe when the condition was read earlier, it says fix it.

Okay. So it's still a maximum of 20 feet?

Yes. And that's standard throughout the city.

And are alleys intended to be the sole ingress egress point?

I'll let Mr. Foote address that.

In this case, My understanding is the historic architectural design guidelines don't encourage more curb cuts in front driveways on Cajon Street. So that leaves us with alley access essentially. Yes, it is true there are a few other properties on Cajon, particularly on this block that do have historical driveways from the front on Cajon, but not every property does. And this is the proposal and it meets the requirements and it meets the design guidelines.

Can I ask, this might be a little unorthodox, so let me know if it's appropriate? Could we condition if the agreeable, to have an HOA condition, parking and safety plan guideline with fines attached if they don't like a plan of

A parking plan.

A parking plan on speed limits. I don't know what else we could include. I'm just trying to think of something that might help to make sure that it's in there for the residents to know to keep it as safe as possible. Can't think of any specific thing besides speed limits, but

Well, the units have enclosed two car garages, so that I presume would be two spaces per unit assigned to those particular units. That's going to be a standard, I would imagine a standard requirement in the HOA than the CC and Rs. The guest parking is typically unrestricted, so it'd be open to all guests. As far as the if you're referring to the 30 foot wide drive aisle, leaving that unblocked, that's both a zoning requirement and from what I understand, a fire department requirement. So that will be essentially a fire lanes that would have to be marked and striped appropriately and I would imagine that would be in the CC and Rs as well to mention don't park in a fire lane.

So the draft CC and Rs we would be reviewing prior to final map approval. So staff will have a chance to look at the draft language for all of that before the final map gets approved.

What I'm trying to do is find some sort of something that might help the morning and evening chaos of the alleyway when people coming and going from work. So the alleyway, is it you can enter and exit one way or does the alleyway go through to another?

The alley from what I understand is two ways in both directions.

Okay. So would it help and maybe it wouldn't, but would it help to only be able to enter from one side and exit to the other?

You mean like, say, from Cajon and then exit through the alley? Yes. Or

No. You can go

into Alley.

Cypress and then exit

Right. But or just both sides of the alley, where you can only go

I see.

Out one way and It

is public right of way. It's intended to be a two way alley. I would hesitate to impose something overly restrictive on this condo association that isn't imposed on other condo associations that have unusual or alley access.

So could we ask for something simple like just a condition that says in your HOA, could you please have at least something in regards to parking drive five miles an hour, you know

Those would

pay attention. Common sense stuff that you shouldn't have to put in an HOA. But but I'm just trying to think of something that might help a little bit.

I don't think it could be a condition of approval, but we'll pass the message along.

Got it. Can't think of anything else? No? Okay. Commissioner Elliott? No?

I I mean, I if you look around the city, these kind of blocks, this is nothing unusual 20 foot wide alleys. People oftentimes two cars can pass in a 20 foot wide alley. If there's an obstruction and people wait and one person goes through, this isn't a high traffic area adding eight units as Don said is adding one about every seven minutes in peak hour. This isn't a lot of traffic in these similar conditions. Mean you could go through the historic streets all over the city and find very similar conditions and some of those streets have multifamily properties on them as well.

So I think these situations even though people are are they're not they may not be accustomed to it, but they but they happen and they work all all over the city. And I I don't expect that this project with eight units is going to cause major problems.

We're not trying to reinvent the wheel here.

Vice President?

Yeah, was going to make a comment that I would be in agreement with Director Dasatnik. Condition on this alley would be inappropriate. We had engineering conditions to improve the alley to their sufficient standard. We have, as was already stated, many cases of this throughout the city, even in visual review of the alleyway itself. In fact, are alleys throughout the city that are much smaller than these. I think it's more of a concern because it's changed, but I don't see it being an issue.

Thank you. My last question for staff is just for knowledge. Was this previously identified as a housing site for Arena or is this just adding to our numbers in a positive way?

No, it was not identified for an affordable housing site in the Arena. Regional housing needs assessment is Arena.

Right. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Any other questions at this time? Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Okay. I will now close the public hearing for this item and turn it over to the commissioners for deliberations and finding. Mr. Escada, could you please bring the findings back up on the screen for us? Okay. Commissioner Stanson, I'm gonna go through every Oh, did you Commissioner Stanson, can we start with you on your

thoughts? I I find that, the site does meet all the requirements, for the fine means the site has the required set backs, walls and fences, you know, the site lays out. Yeah. I mean, it it fills fills all the boxes.

Okay. Commissioner Gisela.

I believe all the questions have been answered at least for safety and the alley, ingress, egress. I feel comfortable with that based on, director. And so they've met everything, and it seems to be like it's pursuant to what the zone requires.

Thank you. Vice Translate.

Yeah, I was actually going to commend the applicant and finding a really wonderful solution, think, a few things for the city. The need for extra housing, That's something we're always struggling against. And so and on the South Side, no less, which is always a challenge in its own. Working with the HSBC to come up with something and agree, there's never going to be a perfect situation scenario for everyone. But to actually identify a design that will be amenable to the area is great.

In fact, my personal opinion, this is just the architectural truest in me is we wouldn't be designing it in the craftsman style. We would actually be designing it in something different. That's what the variegated design of Redlands and all the different architecture styles that are present are actually what I think give it a lot of its charm and trying to make it mimic something from another era. It's not quite in my taste. But if the HSBC is on board with it, I can certainly be in support of it. And I I understand the unique nature and the compromise that has to be made. Right? We can't we we don't want any more curb cuts on Cajon. Right? So we're trying to balance this historical preservation while also bringing some development to the city.

So very much appreciate the overall project and again, commend you guys for doing

so. Michelle Wells?

Yeah. Thank you. I echo a lot of those comments. I would be in support of additional conditions for lighting and materials if needed, but I am satisfied as well with the alley. I have lived in places that are multifamily that took access off an alley and so I know people are incentivized to not dent their car. As far as I mentioned, I didn't not a huge fan of that sidewalk on the South Side, but I'm hopeful that it won't be overused and become a nuisance to that, southern property owner. And just wanted to point out that this is a very walkable neighborhood. There's an elementary school, you know, right up the street. And also we've got some major employers further down the way. So hopefully we will get people that are walking and cycling and avoiding the alley traffic altogether.

Commissioner Elliott, thank you.

Yeah, would second a lot of those sentiments that were shared. The project does meet the findings that are required by the municipal code and think it's also good to recognize that as a housing project in order for us to deny a project there's very specific findings that have to be made and this project doesn't appear to meet those or you know does not present a public health safety welfare issue to the extent that we would need to deny it. I do believe these sites are part of our moderate income arena so developing them with the multifamily product is really beneficial for the city to meet its housing goals. So with that I'm ready to entertain a motion with the rest of the Commission.

Okay and the beauty of going last is everyone says everything I already had to say but thank you for not giving up and continuing to work with the historic preservation department. And offline, I would love to hear how you're getting insurance and getting around that ten year rule. It has nothing to do with your approval, but I would love to see how you're making that happen. And I think it's a beautiful project. So thank you very much.

Could you please bring the motion back up on the screen? And if someone would like to make a motion, if you could please consider adding the conditions to work with staff on a lighting plan and natural materials, wood and stone, craftsman, and approved by the historic society. Mr. Foote.

Thank you. Yes, we can easily amend condition number eight to include the reference to shielding the outdoor lighting and then amend condition number 10 to clarify the natural materials need to be used with this architectural style, no plastic. Thank you.

You. Commissioner Elliott. Sure.

I move that the Planning Commission adopt number seventeen twenty five and recommend that the City Council approve the project subject to the attached conditions of approval, amending condition approval number eight requiring a lighting and photometric plan and amending condition of approval number 10 to require natural materials consistent with historic and scenic preservation. Move to adopt the socioeconomic cost benefit study prepared for the project, approve commission review and approval number 972, approve conditional use permit number 12O1 and approve tentative map number 20792 for condominium purposes.

Second.

Okay. It has been moved by commissioner Elliott and seconded by commissioner Stanson to recommend approval for tentative track map number 20792 commissioner review and approval 972 and conditional use permit 12O1 as amended all in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Congratulations. Thank you. Okay. Moving on to item number five c. Five c is an ordinance text amendment number three seventy for the review of a draft ordinance to update the development standards and design guidelines of the construction of new accessory dwelling units in the City Of Redlands and I will now open the public hearing for this item.

Has any commissioner had any expertise communications with the public regarding this item? Seeing none, staff presentation by Brian Foote. Mr. Foote.

Thank you, chair. So item five c is a discussion of a proposed ordinance updating our section for accessory dwelling units. So that is referred to as ADU and you're going to hear that terminology ADU quite a bit. So a little bit of background, we've had chapter in our zoning regulations now for quite a while pertaining to ADUs, accessory dwelling units. And every so often, the state updates their state laws pertaining to ADUs.

And when that happens, the state law overrides any inconsistent or conflicting local ordinances. So local ordinance has not aligned completely with state law for a few years now. So this is a work program item on our adopted and certified housing element. So it is time that we get around to updating our local ordinance to align with state law. Essentially, state law now permits accessory units in all residential zones, single family and multi family zones as well as mixed use zones that allow residential uses.

So this is quite an expansion of the different districts and zones that could accommodate an accessory unit. Also, there no longer needs to be an existing dwelling unit house or apartment on a lot. It can be a vacant lot with a proposed primary unit or a proposed new apartment building and that just needs to be in plan check and submitted for a building permit. And if that's the case, then we can also concurrently process the permits for an accessory unit where there is no existing dwelling unit. State laws in recent years, there's been a number of state laws almost every year and it's being refined almost constantly.

But now current state law is specific as to what types of development standards that local agencies can impose. And those that are allowable include yard setbacks, again, so long as they don't conflict with what the state law says, minimum and maximum unit size, Again, so long as it does not conflict with what state law says. Parking requirements and specific exemptions. And again, state laws is very specific as to what the exemptions are. And the state will allow objective design standards as opposed to subjective design standards.

So I'll get into a little bit more on that later, but the draft ordinance does include recommendations for objective design standards. And now current state law is specific as to what it will not allow in local ordinances. And that includes requiring minimum or maximum lot sizes for residential lots. The state law has done away with the residency requirement for the property owner to live in one of the units. State law does not require covenants or deed restrictions now.

And then any other local development standards that might have the effect of totally precluding the development of an accessory unit, those are essentially waived under state law. So if there's local requirements pertaining to lot coverage or floor area ratio or the precise location on a particular lot, those are nice. But if they have the effect of totally preventing someone from building an accessory unit, then we can't impose those. So we'll clarify a little bit of our terminology. So detached ADU or detached accessory unit means it is completely separate, not structurally attached to the primary unit.

And then the opposite of that, attached means it is structurally attached to the primary unit. And what that means, attached versus detached, that's defined in the building code. So we're not defining it in our local zoning ordinance because the building code already defines those terms by default. So we're just falling back on the building code definitions. Accessory units can be built within the house.

There's another term now called junior accessory dwelling unit, which means the unit is constructed from space that's already existing within the house. So in other words, there's not an addition. It's an extra bedroom or a space already attached or within the house and that's just converted to a junior ADU. There's also the terminology attached accessory dwelling unit, which is similar, it could be within the main house or apartment building, but it also could be an addition, so an expansion of floor area, that would be an attached ADU. And then detached ADUs, most commonly people think of that as a garage conversion, which is true, it could be a garage conversion.

It could also be a totally newly constructed detached structure, which is not a garage. So those are the three primary terms that we're using in our local ordinance and that mirrors state law. There's detached ADU, there's attached ADU and then there's a junior ADU. And these are a few examples, just some photos of examples of some detached accessory units. Different styles are shown here, but again the main idea is that these are detached and then usually attached ADUs and junior ADUs typically you wouldn't notice that they've been built or they're existing.

It's from the street, you would just see the form of a typical single family house and chances are you would never know that there's a junior ADU or an attached ADU within that structure. So the proposed draft ordinance that is attached to the staff report addresses these particular items on the list here on the screen. These are all things that are specifically permitted under state law that the local ordinance can include. So the number of ADUs that would be allowed would just match state law. Our ordinance specifies a maximum size, so we are proposing a maximum of 1,000 square feet for any number of bedrooms.

It's a little bit different from state law. State law specifies no more than eight fifty square feet for a studio or one bedroom unit. And then for more than one bedroom, it can be 1,000 square feet. So to make it easier for staff to implement, we're not going to be too concerned with the number of bedrooms, we're just going to place the limit of 1,000 square feet, whether it's a studio or a one bedroom or a two bedroom. So in that sense, it's a little bit more flexible than what state law says.

In terms of maximum size for attached ADU, it's going to be the same. It'll be either 1,000 square feet or no more than 50% of the existing floor area or proposed floor area, whichever is smaller. And then for junior ADU, it's state law already limits it to 500 square feet maximum. Our draft ordinance includes a table of development standards. So we've included specific standards for height and setbacks.

And again, it mirrors state law, what state law already allows. So we're going to be consistent with that. There's a section addressing new accessory units in high fire hazard areas and design standards and essentially, we are referencing the current requirements of the California Fire Code and the California Building Code or Residential Standards Code. There's nothing special or in addition to what the state codes already require for high fire hazard areas. The parking requirements, again, they mirror state law.

So generally, in some cases for detached ADUs, the requirement is one parking space per detached ADU, which is what state law allows. There's also a number of exemptions in state law. For instance, if the property is within a half mile of a major transit stop, which is the train stations, then that parking requirement can be waived at the option of the developer. And then junior ADUs and attached ADUs don't require any parking under state law. Then other sections addressing improvements in utilities, rental requirements.

So state law requires rentals for thirty days or longer for in most cases, which is what our local ordinance is going to require for again, for ease of implementation and to make things simpler. There are I don't want to get into all the details because it gets very confusing very quickly, but state law has what's called Section sixty six thousand three twenty three units, which is attached ADUs I'm sorry, detached ADUs as well as some attached and junior ADUs plus accessory units in multifamily districts. So it's for the most part, the most types of ADUs that we do see. State law already requires us to have a rental period of thirty days or longer. So again, I don't want to get into the exceptions of that.

It gets confusing. So our local ordinance, just for simplicity, it says all ADUs need to be rented for thirty days or longer. And then there's a number of other detailed requirements that the state law says, if you have a local ordinance, if you're going to adopt a local ordinance, needs to address these items. And it's a big list and our proposed ordinance includes all of those. And then lastly, architectural design standards.

They are written as objective design standards. Basically it depends on the applicant telling us what style of architecture they have. So staff is not in the position of having to guess or determine on their own what is the architectural style. We're asking the applicant, please tell us what your architectural style is and then follow these recommendations for objective standards. And then we're not getting into the position of staff exercising too much subjective judgment.

We want to avoid the state invalidating our ordinance. Once it's adopted, we're going to have to send it up to the state. The state then has sixty days to review it and then provide any comments back. So essentially, I've gone through all of the twenty twenty five comment letters that HCD has issued to other cities, pointing out all the things that are wrong with our local ordinances. And I've gone through all those and removed those or tried to avoid those being mistakenly slipped into our local ordinance.

So I've hopefully avoided those issues in advance. As far as our housing element, this is a specific task. Adopted and certified housing element. Program 1.6 has those four sub tasks. And as you can see, number three identifies updating the ADU ordinance to align with current state law.

And there's three others that are somewhat related. Number one, basically wants the city to expand the public's access to the relevant information and we've been doing that for years. Our website includes a webpage for accessory units and it's updated every year as the state updates to state requirements. It's updated with the most current information. Also item number two, the city is to develop some pre approved ADU standard plans that the public can obtain and take and then just submit for a quick approval to the city.

So that's actually it's a separate project underway right now. We've hired a consultant to prepare some standard ADU plans. So that is in the process of being completed. And lastly, four is to track ADU production. We already do that with every annual housing report to HCD.

So we'll develop a tool to actively track not just the types of ADUs, but also now the income levels. The state wants more information as far as household income levels, is it very low or low or moderate income households that are occupying these ADUs. So we're going to start assembling that information this year as well. As far as environmental review, there's a specific exemption from environmental review section fifteen thousand two and eighty two for the adoption of local ordinances pertaining to accessory units or second units. Staff's recommendation is that the commission adopt a resolution recommending approval for the City Council for this ordinance text amendment.

I realize this is a very high level overview. It's a lot of detail in the draft ordinance. And if you have any questions, we're happy to go into more detail on any questions you may have.

Thank you. I'm going to go first this time, guys. Just because Mr. Dasatnik will tell you this is something that I've been following up with him monthly for, what, two years now? So I'm very excited about this, and thank you so much for putting it together.

ADUs really help with the housing supply issue, and especially those premade plans make it easier to finance. And it also really helps with the design standards in the city with us having limitations on what we can and cannot say. So when there's something that we've already approved and it's there and it's easy to use, not only does it make it more affordable for the person to build the unit, but it also helps us make sure that we know what the units are going to look like and have somewhat of a control over that. A couple of questions. Most importantly, I called Mr.

Dasatnik today, and we had a brief conversation about this. And what I would like to discuss and possibly bring up for a change is changing that January square foot requirement to the state standard of up to 1,200 because that's an entire bedroom. That's a whole bedroom for someone who needs to put an entirely different separate second family into their And I understand it might not be as easy to implement, but in my opinion and I do this every day it's a really big deal. It can be. I understand that it won't fit in every area, and not every project is going to be eligible for that.

But if it does, I would hate to see them restrict it and not be able to have that extra space. And then I had a question on the meters. I know the state requires separate meters. Does that include meter separation devices or completely separate meters?

Separate meters aren't always required, in particular for junior ADUs and attached ADUs within the existing or proposed house. They're not going to have separate meters. For the detached structures, it's not a requirement. It's written as a may be required depending on the utility provider or the applicant may request separate meters as well. Maybe Mr. Yong I can

didn't read clarify it wrong, but that's not how I read it in the report. It said detached ones would be required to have separate meters. If that's the case, and maybe I'm wrong, if that's the case, I would like to discuss whether or not we have the ability to approve the meter separation devices because that's a much more affordable option than an entirely separate meter, and it achieves the same thing.

How about I did put that in there. Well, in the draft ordinance, may be required. Can you talk about I'm going to ask Mr. Young to address how he typically handles detached ADUs.

I'll address the sewer and water aspect. Gas Company and Edison are separate. So we would encourage for detached ADUs a separate sewer lateral. They're not required to put one in. The building code, we'd have them put in backflow devices.

If they did have a shared lateral, the idea is if it's a shared lateral and the plug is past the point of connection of the two laterals, somebody's bathtub fills up with stuff if they don't have backload of ice, whichever house is the lowest elevation. So sewer laterals is easy, municipal code allows separate connections for structures on a property. Water meters, our municipal code is written that it's one property, one meter, unless approved by the board. The board is comprised of an assistant city manager, two department heads that have nothing to do with development or the utility. And the concept is if a building, I'll use the example of Finney's.

When Finney's went in, it was a bank building, there was a single water meter for that property, the building was reused, they requested to have two water meters, one for the restaurant and one for the office building, the office portion upstairs, they did the necessary under building permit remodeling of their plumbing system to allow for that. But housing on a single property right now, if the property wants to have a separate accounting for water use, there are devices where you can install your own private sub meter just as for an apartment complex, let's use an apartment complex that has 300 units. We don't want 300 water meters out at the street with each one running a lateral from the meter to each unit. It's up to the building to put in the sub meters to keep track of to do the accounting for the water use? Does that help with addressing it from the water perspective?

100%. It actually probably addresses all three of the utilities. So considering what I read, I just want to clarify. The ordinance is going to say can, not must, have separate meters and that's going to be a request if the applicant wants it, not a requirement from the city. Do I have that correct?

That sounds correct. I don't want to I don't know that I can answer from the city's perspective. In all cases, there may be a unique situation or circumstances that may not be true. But from what Mr. Young explained, it's it can be done, not that it must be

done. The verbiage saying that it's required was an error and that's not going to be

Well, correct really it's correctly written in the draft ordinance.

Okay, perfect.

Maybe slightly misunderstood in the staff report.

So just to take it one step further for clarification, if there was for some odd reason a requirement for separate meters, are submeters considered separate meters? Because again much more affordable for a homeowner putting in an ADU to put a separation device if it was required versus an entirely new meter.

The sub meter is on the customer side of the line and that would be up to the property owner to do that. I will address that with Edison. Edison does put in separate meters when customers ask for it, just on a residential property.

Right. Which is perfect.

I have But that's not an issue for the water utility. I think it's unlikely that for residential properties, we would want to go install the meters and all the associated costs that's involved with that while the owner would be paying for the initial installation. Actually, they're doing it and we drop a meter. It's just one more thing that meters have to be replaced later on and there isn't a need to put in separate meters for each residential unit.

Right. I think we're saying the same thing. I just want to make sure we're on the same page. If someone wants to incur that expense, I have no issue with that. My concern is making sure that it's not a requirement on the person developing the ADU.

Although it does say that in the staff report.

Right. What she said was an error, and it's not written that way in the ordinance. Okay. Okay. And then my last question is, well, I'd like to remind everyone so we could talk about the 1,200 square foot that I personally have a request on. But do we have any idea when these predesign plans are gonna be available? I know it's a separate project. I'm just curious. I know mister Desatnik's been working very hard on it for a long time, all of you have, because I keep asking.

We're currently working on designs right now. It will probably take us through the remainder of this year, so I'm hoping for by first quarter, we'll have finalized designs and then council adoption? No. We'll certainly have everything finalized and adopted in the first half of next year.

Perfect. Thank you. That's really exciting. And there are very few cities, from what I understand, that actually have that in place, I think it's a big step for us. So thank you. Any other commissioner questions for staff at this time?

In terms of the size, we don't really have a major issue with it. Most of the applications we get are for seven fifty square feet or less because that's the size at which they eliminate all fees. We don't have we're unable to charge any fees, impact fees if it's $7.50 or less. So we tend to get them at that size. We've had a few up to 1,200 in the past few years and that's what we're using now because that's we don't have an ordinance so we default to state law.

But certainly if that's the desire of the commission, you can make that recommendation.

Does anyone have any thoughts on that?

I was just going to echo that unless there's other administrative burden to doing that that we're not aware of, I think for everything that Chair Shah had mentioned regarding the extra 200 square feet, I think that would be worthy of inclusion.

Commissioner West.

I would also support the increase to 1,200 square feet not just for the benefit to our residents, but also in the event that the state releases new legislation that allows that up to 1,200 square feet, those folks caught in the middle didn't miss out on that extra square footage. Because I could foresee them, the state raising it to that anyway in the future. So that was my only comment there.

I agree with the 1,200 square feet also.

You. Vice Chair Inslee.

Would that require because Mr. Fit, you had mentioned that current state law requires studio ADUs to only be a maximum of eight fifty. So we would look at I mean, we could go beyond that to 1,200 or we have to adopt that secondary Actually,

I think that think you misspoke on that. The state law says that if you are going to adopt a maximum size limit, have to allow that maximum can't be less than eight fifty square feet for up to one bedroom and two and three bedrooms. It can't be less than a thousand square feet, but it can be higher than that. Excellent. So there in fact, it can be higher than 12 from the way I what I understand, but that's the default in state law.

If there's no local restriction, then you would default to the 1,200 foot maximum in state law.

Well, knowing there's a requirement at the it would be a 50 maximum of the existing square. Did I hear that right? Or it can only make up 50%, what was that 50% rule? Or attached ADUs. Or attached So attached to a

house, would be 50% or 1,200 square feet, whichever is less.

Got it. So detached theoretically if we allowed to go beyond 1,200, but sites most sites in the city would not accommodate. Okay.

Thank you for For the

purposes of an actual ADU, I don't see any reason why they would need to go over 1,200. Again, that 200 from 1,000 to 1,200 could make a one bedroom difference, but any other than that, you're building a house.

Exactly.

Yeah. Okay. If there's no other questions, could you please are we doing yes. We're doing an approval for city council. Ah, yes. Yes. We do. Sorry. Got all excited. I don't have any speaker slips. Is there anyone in the audience here to speak on this item? Seeing none, do we have any on Zoom? Seeing none, could you please summarize the written comments that we received?

Yes. We received two written comments earlier today. One from Cameron Hagee both from Cameron Hagee, okay. So one comment sent twice, essentially having a question about the requirement for a separate utility connection, which you discussed and answered earlier. And that's it for the written comments. Thank you.

Okay, perfect. So I will now close the public hearing for this item and turn it over to the commissioners for deliberation. Yes. Debilitation. Deliberation and finding

There are no other questions or comments. I'll go ahead and make the motion. I move that the Planning Commission adopt resolution number one seven two two recommending that the city council adopt ordinance text amendment number three seventy with the condition that we could, exceed from 1,000 to 1,200.

Second.

Okay. It has been moved by commissioner Gonzalez and seconded by vice chair Ensley to recommend approval to the city council for ordinance text amendment number three seventy. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Moving on to item number 5D. 5D is a discussion of the city's adopted warehouse ordinance number 2,955 and a recommendation to city council regarding a potential amendment to the zoning regulations. Has any commissioner had any ex parte communications with the public on this item? Seeing none, staff presentation by Brian Foote. Mr. Foote.

All right, thank you, Chair. This item 5D is your continued discussion of the warehouse ordinance. This was most recently discussed by the Planning Commission in May. So this presentation is a follow-up to that. So a little bit of background on just the development of warehouses, particularly in North West, Redlands.

I'll start with a series of color maps just to show a time series analysis of the development pattern in Northwest Redlands and the donut hole, including the donut hole. So the property shown in yellow were developed in the timeframe of 2001 to 2005. And those are in the city of Redlands on westerly of the California Street boundary. And then the next five year segment from 2006 through 2010 is shown in green on the map. And as you can see, quite a bit of development both on the Redlands side of the boundary as well as in the unincorporated Donut Hole, the county area.

And as we move forward to 2011 through 2015, we can see quite a bit more warehouses being developed. There appears to be about twice as many built in the Donut Hole area as compared to the City Of Redlands area and those are indicated in blue. And as we move forward in the next five year increment from 2016 through 2020, Those are the buildings shown in orange. I believe that's three buildings in the Donut Hole area. And lastly, the timeframe from 2021 through 'twenty five, the building shown in red, those were constructed from 2021 through 'twenty five.

So just generally as a high level summary, I use the geographic information systems to look at each warehouse property in that area and did an estimate of the building square footage. So keep in mind these are estimates. But of all the properties listed, to summarize these, I categorize these into ranges of square footage. So the really, really big warehouses of a million square feet or more, there's two of them in Redlands and there's one in the Donut Hole area. And then the next largest building is 500000 to 999,999, There's total of nine in Redlands and then 13 in the Donut Hole.

And then from the range 250,000 up to 500,000, there's nine in Redlands and 10 in the County Donut Hole. And as you can see, 100,000 to $250,000 there's $5,000 in Redlands and 7,000 in the doughnut hole. So these are just some basic descriptive kind of statistics, but it gives you a sense of the development patterns over time. And it seems to be fairly evenly balanced in terms of the numbers of and sizes of facilities being built both in Redlands and in the County Donal area. So overall, in Redlands in Northwest Redlands, so West Of The 210 and North Of The 10 Freeway, there's a little bit more than 13,000,000 square feet built in the city of Redlands.

And then in the Donut Hole area, there's a little bit less than 14,000,000 square feet built. So just for comparison purposes, seems to be not perfectly balanced, but it's somewhat balanced in terms of the numbers and sizes of facilities and then the overall square footage. And again, this is over a twenty year, twenty five year period. So now this is discussed in previous Planning Commission meetings, just an overview of our warehouse ordinance. The local ordinance adopted in Redlands defines a warehouse and logistics use as having a gross floor area of 50,000 square feet or more or a building that has six or more truck docks or dock high loading doors.

And then the ordinance also applies to the development or redevelopment of properties for warehousing facilities. So in other words, any property that may be existing and is redeveloped or demolished or reconstructed or has additions that exceed 50% of its reasonable replacement value and its uses intended to be a warehouse, those types of projects are also subject to the warehouse ordinance. And we went over this previously in prior meetings. There's five categories of development standards, site location requirements. Again, it's within a one mile radius of a freeway ramp.

Second category is screening and buffering from adjacent uses. The third category addresses traffic patterns and signage requirements, traffic signage requirements as well as the requirement for a traffic study to be prepared. Also a traffic routing plan to be prepared with these new projects. Category for sustainable energy and then lastly, category for operation and construction. A little bit more detail on the development standards.

And again, this is reflective of the legislative intent at the time that we were tasked with preparing an ordinance. I think it was about three years ago and there were some specific items that were mentioned and so the ordinance was tailored to address those items. So the location being within one mile of freeway, truck routing plan and traffic impact assessment. The overall intent was that large trucks avoid passing through residential neighborhoods and avoid sensitive receptors. So that led to the requirements for screening and buffering from sensitive receptors.

And also to lessen the overall environmental impact. So for instance, air quality impacts, noise impacts from either traffic or operations or vibration impacts from passing trucks. More recently, a couple of years ago, the state adopted Assembly Bill AB 98 and apparently it has many of the same types of things in AB 98 that are mentioned in our local ordinance. So many items in our local ordinance match or substantially similar as AB 98 and those categories of items are listed on the screen. So for instance, requirement for PV solar system installation, cool roofing installation, requirements for truck stacking space on-site.

So for instance, trucks waiting to turn into a site, they're not queuing on city streets, they're supposed to be queuing on private property. Requirements for EV passenger vehicles. Again, the Redlands ordinance is slightly more restrictive than that. It requires the installation of chargers not just being charger ready, but the actual installation of chargers. And various other site design requirements near sensitive receptors.

And then there's a number of other items that are included in the Redlands Local Ordinance that are not included in AB 98. For example, your local ordinance has a more restrictive definition of 50,000 square feet or more. And then the state definition is quite a bit higher, I believe it's 250,000 square feet. And various other things, for instance, the state law does not require the preparation of a traffic impact analysis or traffic impact report, whereas our local ordinance does require that. Moving on more recently to AB Assembly Bill seven thirty five, it was just approved by the governor recently.

There are a few additional site design requirements that are now included in AB seven thirty five that are not in the local ordinance. They don't seem to be substantial items. They are slightly different in terms of site design. For instance, AB seven thirty five now requires a distance of 500 feet between a sensitive receptor and a dock door. Whereas a local ordinance requires the dock doors to be placed or oriented as far away as possible or practical from the sensitive receptor.

There's not a hard minimum of 500 feet. AB735 requires heavy duty trucks not to use drive aisles on sides of the building where there might be sensitive receptors adjacent. So that kind of requirement is not in the local ordinance. EB735 requires a separate entrance for heavy duty trucks to access the major thoroughfare or roadway providing its access. So they have a separate entrance for heavy duty trucks that's not in our local ordinance.

And then lastly, a buffer area adjacent to a sensitive receptor to have a minimum buffer width of 50 feet or 100 feet. That is the area to be provided for screening and sound mitigation. So for instance, trees, sound walls, earthen berms, the sound mitigation features of the site have to be placed within that 50 or 100 foot separation distance from a sensitive receptor. So that's above and beyond what our local ordinance requires. And again, these in state law, these would all apply to new warehouses and logistics uses with 250,000 square feet or more.

So if and when there's an application filed, a development application for a new warehouse of 250,000 square feet or more, then the state law would still apply to those types of warehouses. There's quite a bit more detail in the staff report. I won't go into all the detail unless there are specific questions. But again, in mind that for Northwest Redlands, most of which is in the East Valley Corridor specific plan, all of those developments received approval of either a plant development or a concept plan. And for those entitlements within the East Valley Corridor specific plan, all of those received a recommendation from the Planning Commission and all of those received ultimately approval from Council.

So in these Vale Corridor specific plan, those are referred to as quasi legislative actions. So in other words, the plan development designation, plan development one, two, four, five, whatever the case may be, the plan development number becomes the zoning designation for that particular property. Similarly for the concept plans, concept plan one, two, three, four, what have you, those become the zoning designations for the subject property. So that's why when you look at the official zone map for Redlands, you'll see those numbers, plan development PD-one or PD-two or concept plan CP-one or CP-two, that's because that has become the zoning designations for those properties as approved by the City Council. So it's a little bit of a nuance difference that may be confusing to some people, but that's essentially why the zoning map looks the way it does today.

In terms of alternatives for the commission, these were discussed in a little bit of detail in the prior meeting. As mentioned in that prior meeting, one of the options is no change to the existing ordinance. Another option is to consider strategic new strategic zoning amendments of some type. As I pointed out in the May meeting, the one mile radius is a strategic zoning requirement. So by imposing that one mile radius, that designate the areas where the warehousing uses or logistics uses could be allowed and then by implication, they're not allowed outside the one mile radius for what we define as a warehouse, 50,000 square feet or more or with six or more truck docks.

One suggestion that came up in the May meeting from a commissioner was to possibly split the distinction between existing warehouses and new warehouses. So an option could be to recognize the existing warehouses as permitted and let them to continue as permitted because that's how they were approved originally. They were permitted uses. So let the existing warehouses with entitlements, let them continue on as is, but make a distinction for new warehouses. There could be an unequated ordinance that says no new warehouse developments.

So no new logistics centers with more than 50,000 square feet or six or more truck high dock doors. And that could include redevelopment projects as well and assemblage or redevelopment of properties. And lastly, as was discussed in the May meeting, an option is to make all warehouse uses as not permitted. So in other words, delist them from the list of permitted uses that would automatically make them if they have entitlements, make them legal nonconforming uses. I don't know what the I don't know how to characterize the appetite for that kind of action.

It's fairly significant. There is a legal memo attached to your staff report that explains some of the potential consequences for that and they're not pretty, some of them. It could include potential legal liability down the road, whether or not it involves amortization of legal nonconforming uses. And with that, we'll look forward to your discussion. I don't know if Mr. Dasatnik has any further comments.

Okay. Mr. Sandson.

Mr. Foote, so I have a question for you. I think we're down to only three available warehouse sites. I think three of them already in the process or gone. So what is the largest building we could build out of the three sites that we have available is my first question.

Unfortunately, don't have that map at my fingertips. Recollection, it was a site. I don't remember the acreage, but it was could be

a couple of 100,000 square feet potentially. My recollection was about the largest was about 150,000 square feet and the other two were about 50,000.

Okay. I'm kind of lost why we're even here when we only have three sites left in the city of Redlands.

Vice Cherensley?

I think I've answered that. The reason we again, I appreciate, Mr. Fitbit, the context, the discussions we've had and I think providing some additional context of where those conversations came from prior to a couple of our new members in the commission. We've had many conversations about warehouse ordinance within this commission over the last five years at least. And with the successful adoption of a new warehouse ordinance, which I think was a very strong success for the commission and the city council and the citizens of Redlands.

But the main concern that borne this conversation really came from two developments that have been recently approved and constructed, or at least once constructed and once slated. The California Street warehouse that took over Faroe's Lost Kingdom, And of course, the Tennessee's warehouse, which was a full replacement of the existing manufacturing plant there. So the reason we're having the conversation has little to do with remaining available sites as it stands today. It's with protecting already developed sites, which we've already seen the developers of these warehouses have little to no concern of taking over and redeveloping complete sites very quickly for new warehouses. And so we're really, in my opinion, protecting trying to protect the nature of the city surrounding the existing corridor that we have on the on the 10 and the two within a mile of freeway on ramp on or off ramps, which was highlighted in part of the staff report and some of the zones that are available, which essentially is the entire corridor of the 10 Freeway in Redlands.

So the concern is that. And that's why we've in response with we have lots of written comments, might be others that wish to chime in. There's a real appetite to look at how much of this development is happening within the city. The we've had lots of conversations as well about the intent of the general plan for the city of Redlands of a variegated design and variegated use. And of course, in the zones where warehouses are allowed, other uses are permitted or allowed to be permitted.

But that has not been the case, at least substantially. We've not seen a significant portion of those kinds of other projects come forward and thus, in some people's opinion, mine included, not upholding what the original intent of the general plan for the city was for these zones to have multiple types of uses. So knowing that we have, you know, within the donut hole and the city of Redlands, 28,000,000 square feet over the last twenty five years have been developed. Nothing else, no single type of development comes close. We in my opinion have a duty to at least examine these options.

In regards to the options, which Mr. Phil, I know you made mention that the I think it was referred to in the memo and we've referred to it here as the grandfathering option. The where we would make them basically all legal nonconforming That that would have certain ramifications if I if I remember correctly either in the staff report or in the memo. There was some pretty clear solutions to some of those challenges such as what happens in the case of a natural disaster of one of these buildings. And you know, do we allow them to reconstruct?

And part of that grandfathering might be yes. If they had a permitted use before and they had a warehouse in a legal non conforming status that we may allow them through our ordinance to rebuild. And I think that would be in essence, we would as commission or at least I certainly would want to uphold something to that effect. But if we look at the other options, I'm very, very curious zoning strategies. I think commissioner Elliott brought them up in specific last time during May.

And I'm very curious to just make sure how those other options would actually prevent additional developments throughout the city, existing or non existing sites. How would that prevent or accomplish the same goal that we're trying to seek out to, which is just no more development of warehouses or at least incredibly small amounts. In other words, how does how do the options compare and what are the what are the legislative options or the ordinance options that that an applicant would have to get a you know, to bypass those regulations?

I want to make sure you're not confusing the number three and four because I think number three is actually fairly easy to accomplish and doesn't have significant legal hurdles. We would basically making all existing warehouses legal uses as long as they continued and we could deal with what happens if there's a fire or an earthquake or something.

So was that the selectively apply a new warehouse base zone, is

that what that option was? We would pick a date basically and say no new warehouses past a certain date and that could be next month or and that is fairly easy to implement. Whereas number four, I think raises a lot more issues.

Yeah, think and again, I'm getting the numbers are different here than on the memo and within maybe in the staff report they were the same. But the if the if number four was that essentially a grandfathered in, but everything's legal nonconforming, then that might be a much more harsh option and we have to we'd have to mend quite a bit in order to protect the city from those kinds of lawsuits or other concerns that develop landowners would have. So number three, from what I'm understanding, we're saying we can pick a line of sand date regardless of zone throughout the whole city and say from this moment forward, no new developments of warehouses in any zone.

Yes, that's correct. That's what that's saying. I think that would accomplish the goal that That way you wouldn't be dealing trying to figure out a zoning standard that helps for any particular property or I'm not sure what that would be honestly.

Would there be has there been any discussion because it's again kind of unclear what are the remedies that an applicant might have to say, well, I know there's the state, but I really want to do it. So what is that is there a process there that would allow that? There would have to be another ordinance change to allow that?

Yeah, mean, no, it would be a hard and fast rule codified.

I'm sure I have other questions, but I know Commissioner Elliott has some as well.

Commissioner Elliott,

sorry, this is a discussion item. So are we doing questions and discussion deliberation or is it all at once right now? Don't have any questions, I just have opinions.

No, so I think you share those and I think we have a really well rounded hard discussion. So yes, please proceed.

Okay, thank you. Okay, so one of my questions was how many sites are left and I think the answer was possibly three. And I kind of wanted to understand where they are as we focused on kind of the Northwest Quadrant, but I think those remaining sites are South Of The 10. Is that right? Or at least a couple of them?

The recollection is they're between the 10 and the wash. They're relatively small but the one thing I will say about them is they're surrounded by other warehouses. So the likelihood of another use successfully going into those locations would be

challenging. Other than maybe light manufacturing, which a lot of that area is.

Right, other than It's all

smaller uses in that area. So I mean Right. If if So that's why I don't think this is right that we want to stop all warehouses because you want to build 75,000 feet of manufacturing, you can't do it. And that's what that whole that whole areas over there is all warehouses. You're not going to put apartments, you're not going to put houses next to in between warehouses.

So We're not talking about banning manufacturing development. Well, you're talking I mean, but you're talking warehouses and you're talking sizes. So when you're talking sizes and you're saying, well, anything over 50,000 feet is a warehouse is what you what has been the definition has already been made here. That creates a problem when somebody wants to come in and build a 75,000 foot building for manufacturing.

I don't believe

be a warehouse, it could be manufacturing, it could be whatever. Mister Foote, I

don't believe that's the definition.

I'm gonna step in here for a second, and if I could ask the commissioners to please address staff and let staff address the questions, and then we'll go person by person, please. Commissioner Elliott, if you could finish.

Thank you. Thanks. I'm just tracking Okay. My notes here. Generally, I think we all as commissioners put a lot of value and respect into the rights of the private property owner and to being able to exercise those rights under the codes and regulations that we have on the books.

I do think that warehousing is a unique situation where there's extreme market pressure to develop that land use at the expense of all other land uses that are also permitted within those zones and while it might seem like a moot point that there's only three sites left, there's still three sites left that could be something besides warehouses potentially and I'll cite I think 721 Nevada Street where Jay Riley got its start and Escape Craft Brewery got its start. Don't believe that would meet the definition of a warehouse but that's a highly successful land use that we've seen repeated in the city.

I'm really sorry but can we just keep it 1%

But that's not the use that we're seeking to regulate under this discussion. And I see that as an economically viable use that we would potentially like to see more of in this city because it's where a lot of our local businesses can get their start. And so with the immense pressure to develop warehouses, those other uses kind of get forgotten about. I think I would be in support of eliminating new warehouses. I would like to see the couple of the provisions from AB735 worked into our existing warehouse ordinance, particularly 100 foot buffer from sensitive receptors and that 50 to 100 foot like linear buffer requirement.

But I also like to see that applied to redevelopment sites so that if we are going if any warehouse site were to burn down or whatever is demolished and rebuilt that it would have to meet our modern standards that we have now. And I think that's all for my comments right now. Thank you.

Commissioner Wills, do you have any questions or comments?

No questions. I guess just the only comment is just to kind of echo what commissioners Ensley and Elliot said that it's, you know, it's there are those three sites that could be something else and then also protecting our, know, existing other industrial sites from becoming warehouses. I think the reason why Splash Kingdom and La Z Boy were so hard for the community to swallow is that we already had uses that everybody liked. That La Z Boy meant a lot to one generation, Pharaoh's Splash Kingdom was a place that, you know, many generations went to enjoy. So we want to make sure that doesn't happen again, where we have to sacrifice a use or a location that was important to the community for a warehouse. So I would support, you know, making them not permitted moving forward.

Yeah. Vice Transley.

Yeah. I wanna echo what commissioner Elliott was mentioning about AB seven thirty five. In fact, I made a similar note that if we can incorporate those at the 50,000 foot level, like we have the rest of our ordinance would be fabulous. I can't help but wonder had that been adopted and enforced by us, Tennessee Street may not have ever been redeveloped because of I don't know if it would meet those particular requirements. Certainly not the drive lanes next to the sensitive receptors.

But I think that would be fantastic to add. And I just had another the follow-up question because I want to stress it and I just want clarity from staff. Commissioner Elliott made mention as well, we're not trying to discourage development of certain kinds of light manufacturing or industrial uses that bring jobs that don't have the same kind of truck traffic. And so I just want to make sure that we're on the same page that the definition we use for warehouses is different than those other kinds of uses, correct?

Correct. So we have a definition of warehouse. We also have a definition of ancillary warehousing. So where the primary use is manufacturing, assembly, service commercial or other type of commercial or industrial use and they happen to store things, the things they make or they use for their business, those are exempt from our definition of logistics warehouse. So somebody could build a 100,000 square foot building for manufacturing and they have a very large storage area, but so long as they're not having more than six truck docks and their primary use is manufacturing or commercial of some kind and they're not a logistics distribution center, then they're fine.

The definitions we have captured logistics distribution centers where they truck stuff in, unload, sort, repackage and truck it right back out. They're not manufacturing anything, they're not generating sales tax revenue. So it's hopefully clear enough in our definitions of what we intended to capture for the warehouse definition.

Appreciate the clarity and I certainly feel it is. And actually in the step forward, there was mention as well about I mean, you mentioned ancillary warehouse for those producers, but then there's also these other kinds of properties like it may not be a warehouse, but it's related to a logistic warehousing like where they park truck cabs overnight, a huge parking lot of those or trailers. And I think that there may have been mentioned in the staff report that at least or maybe it was the memo from staff report. Was it in a staff report? Yes.

There would be that we should at least consider if we're looking at a full band that we should also look at and consider these kinds of other developments or uses that are related to logistics warehousing. Is that correct?

Not in our final staff report. One that should have been published was not in the final no, that was not.

Okay.

We fixed that in the final staff report.

Okay. I looked at it again today on the website and that's what I saw. Is it still there?

Shouldn't be there. Yes. We fixed that on Thursday, that was not in the final staff report.

Okay. I just looked at the one that was up there today. But to that end, I think it at least bears a conversation. I think this is a good first step, but as we go through it, bringing in AB seven thirty five to the conversation and those kinds of other components, as well as these what was it called Commissioner Gonzalez?

Related land uses.

Related land uses that are related to logistics. Exactly. That would be interesting to have that conversation. I don't feel that we have as many of those situations throughout the city, but at least if we're doing one, we should at least have a conversation about the other. That's my comment for now.

Okay. Commissioner Gonzalez.

I'm wondering, and this is just my redevelopment mind, incentives for the properties that are remaining to have manufacturing. Is there something that the city could do to incentivize manufacturing manufacturing as as opposed opposed to to a a warehouse? Warehouse?

Just my thought. City

That's probably difficult given that we don't really have a program that for business assistance like redevelopment agencies did. I would like to address Commissioner Elliott's comment about putting other requirements on a property so that if one did burn down or something else happened that they would have to comply. I think that's problematic in that you're basically making those then a non conforming building because if they burn down and then can't rebuild, then they can't get insurance. There's a whole lot of probably other legal issues that come into play similar to what the number four option would. So I would recommend against that.

I think the number three is as I said was fairly simple, fairly easy and it basically would address all the new warehouses or somebody buying up property to assemble small buildings to build another large warehouse that would not be allowed.

If I can follow-up, make a good point and thank you for checking me on that. I'm thinking in context of the Tennessee site. So I guess that wasn't previously approved as a warehouse, but it did get redeveloped and under our warehouse ordinance. So I guess could we apply these AB735 updates to our ordinance and then apply those to any redevelopment application or would redevelopments just go away under option three entirely? So I guess what I'm seeking is clarity under number three it's no new development but also no redevelopment.

That's right.

Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Rose, I'm gonna go to commissioner Stanson first and then I can go to you. Commissioner Stanson.

Yeah. I'm sorry. I can't support number three. I can't support taking away the rights of people to be able to rebuild their building or to be able to do what they want with their property. I mean, that's why they bought their property. They've owned it for a lot of years in some cases. We're down to three properties, you know. I I you're you can't come in and redesign redevelop Tri City into warehousing because it's not zoned for the it doesn't have the correct zoning. So you're not gonna be able to just come in and assemble and add warehouses willy nilly wherever you want. I think we're just adding a burden to our city into into our ability to be able to do things.

And quite honestly, what we have left in the three properties will never be warehouses anyways because they're all too small for the definition of a warehouse. So I don't understand the need to to make it harder for people to do things in this town. It's already hard enough to deal with the state of California and the city of Redlands as it is, let alone just adding another layer on it. So I don't support number three in any way shape or form.

Thank you. Commissioner Wilson.

Okay. So I guess just a quick comment. I don't often see large new warehouse applications from anybody within the city of Redlands. Oftentimes, they are coming from way outside of our city. So I don't know that it's a burden necessarily to Redlands to have that restriction. But I did wanna go back to the clarification between new new developments versus rebuild just so we're all on the same page. Any existing warehouse, if we said that they were legally nonconforming, those entitlements would run with the land. So if an existing warehouse user left, another warehouse user could still come in and they wouldn't have to do anything. Correct?

Hold on. Are you talking about four or three? Because four is the legal aggressive Three. Okay. So three is not about legally legal nonconforming. That would be number four.

Right. Okay. So I think I just wanted to alleviate some of commissioner Stanson's concerns because I think he's concerned that if a if a large warehouse that's existing were to change hands, they can still have another, you know, another user could still go in there so long as they're not having enough time lapse on that entitlement. So it's not really just the three sites that we're talking about. About. We're talking about every already developed warehouse site as well. So I think I I don't know our code because I didn't look ahead of time. But I would imagine there's some kind of percentage that we limit. Could you walk

We would have to work through that. We'd probably have to allow a rebuild to the existing on a substantial damage.

Isn't it usually something like 75%?

Can I try to clarify? So if we're talking about number three, so existing warehouses, they remain permitted uses. So the legal non conforming provisions don't apply, they're permitted so they can continue and not be subject to the one hundred and eighty day vacancy provision. The one hundred and eighty day vacancy provision only applies to legal non conforming properties number four.

Right. So on number three, for clarification, if it burned down, they can rebuild a warehouse. They can sell their building to another warehouse operator and be fine. No one can build a warehouse and no one can take an existing parcel or development that's not a warehouse and turn it into one. Right?

That's the concept. Yes.

Is is that the spirit of the people that are in support of number three? Is that the spirit of what it is that you're looking for? Because this is a discussion so staff can go back and kind of take what our intention is and turn that into something that we can look at in ordinance. Is that everyone's intention that that is approving, that is in support of three? Did I miss anything?

I think certainly in if number three is as we are describing, right, that we're leaving alone everything that's currently there. I think that again, clarifying and make sure, which sounds like there is plenty in there of redevelopment not allowed beyond the scope of their existing building, right? They're not going to be able to redevelop the site. They can use it as designed. It's permitted as designed and built.

And if they if it burns down or some other act of God happens, I guess the question I have is, if I'm not mistaken, the other warehouse ordinance that we have, there is some sort of maybe it was redevelopment that they're not allowed to redevelop more than a certain percentage. Otherwise, the ordinance would kick in, right? But it has nothing to do with same thing, a fire or a flood or anything like that, no earthquake damage. So yes, in that case, it feels that it keeps the spirit of what we already have in the warehouse ordinance for existing developments and for new developments. But it also certainly accomplishes what I think most people in the city are looking for, which is no future new warehouses.

So it sounds like a wonderful solution.

Commissioner Sanson. So

what happens with as time goes on and buildings become older and warehousing changes so that they need to be more automated, they need to be this, they need to be that, they need to tear this building down. And maybe the building next to it that's out in the middle of the donut hole, and they want to build a larger building, you know, to accommodate a different use. Well, now we're stuck with two old buildings that can't that nothing can be done with them, and they become they fall into obsolescence and they don't the developer and the owners have no ability to modernize or do anything with their with their property.

Are you talking about just so mister Foote can answer or mister Zasatnik can answer your question appropriately. Are you talking about an existing warehouse?

Yeah.

Okay. So if an existing warehouse needs to modernize or expand under item number three, how would that work or would it?

Well, I don't think we would prohibit interior modernization, if they're expanding building footprints would probably be prohibited. Most of these properties don't really have room to expand their footprint

into place. Two and I've seen it happen in my in my career where you've had two buildings that are obsolete. They tear them down. They make one big building out of them. And they're already in an existing warehouse area. I mean, so now we but now we're stopping people from being able to modernize or or utilize their property correctly that's in an in an established warehouse zoning area when we would be they would be precluded from doing it.

So let me just clarify. If I

think mister Foote's got the got knows what I'm saying. So I don't need

I I know. But for the for the purposes of the public and everyone, I just wanna make sure that the question is clear. So if there's warehouse warehouse A and warehouse B and all of a sudden they want to combine and they're already permitted uses, then what?

Okay. I think that's already addressed in our existing ordinance that was adopted recently. So it includes any demolition, reconstruction, repairing or rebuilding that exceed 50% of the reasonable replacement value. If that happens, then it triggers everything in the warehouse ordinance to the extent feasible and practical. So the one mile radius doesn't apply, we can't force someone to pick up and relocate.

The other site design features, energy efficiency features, landscaping and buffering and screening, all of those will be implemented to the extent feasible. So we're not going overboard to deny or inhibit someone's already established property rights, but we are going to include what we can from the warehouse ordinance.

I get that. I understand that part of it, but but number three says not permitted. You wouldn't be able to it's not permitted to build a warehouse. So therefore, how can you go back and rebuild or or modernize a facility or in an area that's already surrounded by warehouses. But according to this, they wouldn't you wouldn't be able to. You're not permitted to build a warehouse. So therefore, you have you have owners that in an existing warehouse area where it doesn't affect anybody in Redlands or anybody else because they're already there and they're already surrounded, but now I can't touch my property and do anything with it because it says it's not permitted.

So the way I understood your previous question was existing warehouses that were going to be rebuilt or remodeled or Right. Connected or added to.

You have you have a building that's not or is that's obsolete. So it's got too low ceilings. It's whatever it may be. And there may be two of them next door to you. You want to combine them or you want to build a different type of facility.

Right. So number three, that's exactly what number three would prohibit. That's what we

And that's what's wrong about it because now you're telling property owners that they can't have they can't do anything with their property. So therefore, you know, you get a twenty year old building and now, oh, well, wait a second. Now I can't sell it. I can't do anything with it because it's obsolete and I can't do anything to bring it up to modern standards. That's what I'm where I have a problem.

Mister Zasatnik, can I ask you a question? If if it's an obsolete warehouse building that's already permitted in a warehouse, they would be able to modernize under number three because it's already a permitted use. Correct?

What what how to define modernized? Would they be able to tear it down and rebuild it?

You would tear you have to tear it. You can't.

I I just need one person's question.

So if they need to tear it down and rebuild another warehouse but they were already a permitted use and number three didn't take away that permitted use, could they rebuild a warehouse?

That That's a good question. Mean, think we could structure the ordinance either way. Mean, think what I'm hearing from the commission, no, you probably couldn't. I mean, there was a unless it was a fire or it was destroyed by earthquake or fire and natural disaster.

So I think that we mean we didn't hit that point. Because from what I'm hearing from the commission and please clarify for me is you guys are saying most of you are saying no new warehouses.

Correct. But we also had a clarification for item three, which is what I was just mentioning in my last comment that there is a prohibition on redevelopment of those warehouse sites so they can maintain existing use, maintain existing permitted allowances, including design, right? They have a certain I mean, we spend a lot of time looking at building height, right? And so we spend a lot of our efforts to make sure that the mass of the building that is there is appropriate to the surroundings. And so I would say yes, it would be prohibited.

A redevelopment for purposes of modernizing whatever that could be. It's a concrete box of air. So I don't know what on the outside they would ever need to do. Most of it's to director Dasatnik's point in in at least in a maybe a lay person's understanding would be interior modernization. If they need to if if the example given is they want to redevelop because they need to extend the height, To what end would be my next question? And again, I think that goes against what the original intent of this is.

The original intent is to stop warehouse completely, and I don't think that's right. I think we're taking away owners' rights, and I don't think that's the right thing to do. I'm sorry.

Okay. Do we know or do we need to ask the city attorney what the legal implications would be? And I'm talking about item number three with the so we take away the ability to build new warehouses and redevelop spaces that aren't warehouses into warehouses. So we're talking about a warehouse spot. Do we know what the implications would be if we enacted do we have any legal implications if we enacted that portion of 50% and then all of a sudden you couldn't rebuild a warehouse there?

You would have issues, I can tell you that. And you're making you're basically making existing buildings nonconforming and you're going to run into issues and legal challenges.

Okay. So for me personally, and I would love to hear your opinion on this, I I totally understand where you're coming from. But for me, I would be okay with enacting item number three, and warehouse sites are warehouse sites, period. Not necessarily enacting the provision and I'm sorry, I don't have the technical wording down right now, the provision about having to if it's a warehouse site already, then fine, rebuild it within our standards. So we're taking away legal implications and people that already have warehouses, but we're still capturing the spirit of no more because it was already there.

So I concur with that position. Okay.

I would concur with that position assuming that it maintains existing characteristics from a massing perspective as it stands today. I'm not I'm not okay with them wanting to redevelop and there's a new standard that says, oh, but we can now build to property line limits. We can now extend to 60 foot heights. Like that would be, in my opinion, that would go right against the main intent of this. It's not about the I mean, part of it is the square footage that they are consuming in this city.

But the other part of it is the traffic, the pollution, and and the constant complaints we get from from cities from citizens that this would go against that. You would be doubling if you raise the heights up to 80 feet going double height on the warehouse, now you have twice as many truckloads. You have twice as much happening on that site. That would go against what I believe the intent of this warehouse prohibition would be.

Okay. So mister Dusakne, knowing all of those things, is it possible to construct an ordinance around both of those items? I know you can't do it today, but you know, the purpose is a discussion.

Think we would say the same square footage and does not exceed the height of the existing building or maybe make a threshold percent or something or I don't know. I'd have we'd have to think about it. But I think you're I think we could craft something that gets to that intent.

Thank you. Commissioner Gonzalez.

So we're not taking away any existing warehouses on Number 3. They they are there. They will stay. But from this point forward, whatever the timeline is, no new warehouses

That's correct.

On the three properties that are left?

Well, no. I mean, we're talking about anywhere in the city is what I'm hearing.

Okay. Okay. I had a question. Are there any projects that are currently in the application process that we haven't approved? And if so, how would those be affected by this potential ordinance?

Do we have any I'm not recalling

any large warehouse type developments. There's a handful of small, like light industrial buildings that we have.

So I don't believe we have any that would be affected.

Okay. Are you guys okay with me moving forward with public comment? Okay. I'm going to start with speaker slips. We will start with Linda Hamilton.

Welcome. Thank you. I'm

very impressed and appreciative of the conversation that you just had. Honestly, I don't have that much to say since I think your discussion is going in a really good direction. I'm with Accelerate Neighborhood Climate Action and from our perspective of course, there should be a ban on any more warehouses for all of the reasons that you can imagine. I want to say that we're so appreciative of the city updating the climate action plan, which I know you approved and hiring our new sustainability coordinator who is wonderful. We're working closely with her and as far as Anka goes, we're doing everything that we can to support the city climate action plan.

And I think that this is an issue that I think it's even listed in the Climate Action Plan about the warehouses. So this could be such a sign to the environmental community, especially if you do put a ban on any further warehouses. That is like this giant issue out there, the warehouses for so many people. And so I think they would be cheering you very appreciative if you do go in that direction. And the other thing I want to say, your conversation was wonderful, such good points were raised, but I noticed that climate wasn't mentioned in the discussion.

And I always think to myself, you know, as I look at what the future is bringing and the fact that just yesterday a major report came out that we passed one of the key tipping points in the climate system, which is pretty dire, that any decision that we make about future development, climate really should be part of that consideration. So I know it wasn't mentioned directly, but I think possibly some of you are aware of the implications there and how important this is in terms of any potential emissions coming from any building projects. So I just want to thank you for the discussion and hopefully the ban will be enacted. Thank you.

Thank you. Dick Cornell.

One

thing

I will say.

One thing I

Please join us.

Dick Yeah. Cornet, 834 Eastwood Street, a resident of Redlands for almost fifty years. I was involved in some of the East Valley corridor work as an engineer doing the engineering doing aspects of it. The planners did the planning. It's disappointing to me that there's more, not more mixed use development there in largely warehouses because the plan at the time and what we planned for utilities was based on more mixed use development.

But I will say the climate action plan, large, by far the largest impact of greenhouse gases is transportation. Two thirds of the greenhouse gases in Redlands are associated with clean greenhouse gases and transportation. So if we stop any new warehouses, that's the appropriate thing to do. We don't need any more traffic emissions from transportation and trucks. So item three is definitely the way to go. And we appreciate your discussion on this. Thank you.

Thank you. No speakers, mister Hodrey.

Want me to speak?

I do.

You got a couple hours?

Just for class.

You're here. You might as well.

And keep it entertaining at the same time. I I listen with great interest and I have the greatest respect for the folks from ANCA there and their focus on the environmental impact. Of course, there are many other aspects to the impact, but I guess what I wanted to say was comparing today's discussion to what I've seen over the long run, and by that I mean decades, if you go back twenty years or more when the citrus industry was already obviously dying and citrus farmers were trying to dispose of their property, how can we make money? The value of the land was greater than the price of the oranges. So, in came the heroes, the warehouse builders.

And the the mindset of city administration here in Redlands was what a wonderful thing. A warehouse generates a lot of tax revenue which we could certainly use. It creates jobs that helps with employment and us as politicians can go to the the constituents and say, look what we did for the city of Redlands. We brought in warehouses. We've gone a 180 degrees around now to where our administration, no offense to any individuals, is how can we drive a stake through the heart of those evil warehouses?

That horse has already left the barn as it's been pointed out numerous times, there's only three postage stamps left that you could even put a warehouse on and would that really make that much of a difference? Should we go with the original mindset that they would also generate tax revenue and jobs or should we say we're gonna just put a chicken farm out there or what shall we do? I don't have the answer for you, but just to put some perspective on the discussion here as to what can they do. Well, what if the warehouse burns down? We had that several months ago, a giant right off the 10 Freeway burned to the ground.

There's a new warehouse there now. They rebuilt it in an amazingly short time. So, that story has already played out and should it continue that way? So a business builds a warehouse and in twenty years from now they say, our business has really expanded. Know, we we just need more room. If we could just put another story on this warehouse, it really won't change the footprint of the building but it'll add square footage. Can we expand our business there? And Redlands comes back and says, nope, you can't add another square foot. They say, fine, hell with you, we're gonna move our business to Tennessee. Now the building is vacant.

So, there's a lot of pros and cons but I'm not quite seeing the perspective in the discussion that goes beyond really abstract hypotheticals of the what ifs versus the reality of And I I hope I gave you some food for thought and have a nice beer and enjoy your evening. Thank you very much.

Thank you, mister Hoder. Okay. I I first of all, I'd like to say thank you for everyone who joined us today and to every single commissioner for oh, Zoom comments, sorry. You're right. Do we have any Zoom comments? Okay. So now with that said, I'm going to close the public hearing.

Excuse me, Chair. Yes. We received a few written comments.

Oh, sorry.

Which were distributed previously to the commission. I'll just summarize briefly. Total of six written comments, emails submitted prior to the hearing. Four are in favor of what's described as number three, the no new warehouse option and then two, just generally opposed to where any warehouses.

Thank you. You. So now I will close the public hearing for this item. Before I turn it over to you guys for deliberation, again, I just wanted to say thank you to each and every one of you. This is a hard discussion and those are important decisions, and hard discussions are necessary.